Now that's what I call crotch movement - it looks like the male equivalent of getting your boobs to rotate in opposite directions. That's what you get when you combine hip-hop with Latin dance savvy. This year's La Linea, London's Latin music festival, kicked off with the boy-band end of the spectrum, Orishas, a helpful reminder that Cuban music is not just about wheeling out old geezers from retirement.
But first it was hats off to the support band, La Corte, who did an amazing job of thawing out a pretty absurd venue for this kind of gig. Regimented seating, a cavernous stage, dodgy acoustics and a small army of security guards removing people from anything resembling an open space is not a party-starter. But after a couple of tunes, the Venezuelan quintet had a fair section of the 2,000-odd crowd up on its feet - even if, locked into our rows, we looked like we were dancing on skis.
In some ways, hip-hop and Latin make an odd pairing. Hip-hop sits heavy on the beat, Latin flies off in the spaces in between. La Corte stayed closed to hip-hop. They combined salsa and scratching with an authentic rap sound, which held on to a valuable dark edge that could easily have been chased away by the high-spirited end of Latin. The rappers have a recognisable mic style - one shotgunning the words at a single pitch, the other letting the conversational rhythms come through. Accompanied by their tracksuited body- popper, they paced relentlessly. At times, it was like being trackside at the Olympics.
The DJ and percussionist connected well, but the additional drummer and bass-player didn't seem too secure, caught between bolstering the DJ beats and filling in around them - between hip-hop and Latin.
Orishas burst on to the scene, following a little warm-up from their percussionist and DJ, and headed straight for the cameras to give them a lens-full of belt buckle. The front line of Rondel, Yotuel and Ruzzo have their work cut out: singing, often beautifully, in close harmony, rapping, and generally looking hot for the ladies. Unlike La Corte, Orishas lean more into their (exiled) home music, repackaging old Cuban classics, son and salsa, working rap in over the top. When they really knuckle down, as in Represent, it works like a street party with street cred. But sometimes the ingredients fall out of balance, leaving behind a kind of Damage-goes-salsa.
They could wipe the floor with most pretty-boy outfits, and they created a venue-defying party - it would be a shame to see all that talent go the boy-bland way.
